Joe Atom

Well lads, i can genuinely say it has been a pleasure having been involved in many gigs with you guys over the years. I remember when you used to come down to the Moorings on a Sunday afternoon and come up and do The Trooper, to playing at our respective albums launches, numerous gigs together at Drummonds and Drakes - the highlight by far being the support of Thin Lizzy in 2003. From a personal point of view, how you guys are even still speaking to us after the promotional disaster that was the Double Jack tour in 2003 where we were both let down badly by an alleged promoter is beyond me!

Although it was fuckin hilarious, from the gig in Newcastle (with Hooooooooooax), the sleeping banana incident in Berwick, Spoonie's "utter baws" applause, Del's 10 minute love affair with old samuel in Spoonie;s flat, our twenty minute sets in Bannermans, to a cracking gig in henry J beans, and constant mentions of "alexander the great was 33 years old etc, eric bristow was 29", and rewriting the words to Iron Maidens most dismal tunes "Invaders" (shopping!) it was probably one of the funniest 4 days I've spent in the last 10 years. How I can actually remember all that is beyond me, maybe I'm not really as old as I look and I got pretty fucked that whole week.

Seriously though lads, all the best for your respective ventures, and I will try my utmost to make it to one or more of your farewell gigs.

Dammit, can't believe I failed to mention that tour or Double Jack in the original statement. Agreed, it was one of the most amusing few days I've ever had. You seem to remember a lot more about it than I do!

Seriously, I remember seeing Double Jack for the first time at Old Drakes on the Castlegate when I was aged about 14 or 15 and Trev was still playing the bass and it was one of the most influential gigs I experienced in terms of realising that you didn't have to be famous to be a fucking amazing musician. I remember raving to Mac about you actually long before we ever played together! Feels like I haven't seen you in ages, and for that I apologise sir. Would be great if you could make it along to one of our farewell gigs.

By the way, what's so amazing about your sheep mate? Well just look at it... it's got a white body and a black head

Cheers to all for your messages of support.

It is with genuine sadness that we make the announcement that Black Atom have decided to split up. Having spent the last ten years bringing our own particular brand of melodic progressive metal to Aberdeen and the surrounding area, it is going to be strange getting used to not having the Atom in our lives any longer. While we are still very much firm friends, it is difficult nowadays to find the time to dedicate to practicing and writing new material. Many of us have other projects, lives and wives and children - The success of My Mind's Weapon obviously takes up a lot of Dan's time, Mac is busy with Hot Mangu, Rass has been taking abuse as the bassist in Deadloss Superstar and I have Thrashist Regime to wreck my neck with. Len is now full-time teaching at the college and is always busy drumming for productions in the Arts Centre, and Erskine just has one of the busiest lives of anyone I have ever met. Over the last two years Black Atom have gigged less and less, and over the summer we have hardly practiced at all. With songs as complicated as some of ours it is tough to get back in a room and play them as well as we would like and the songs themselves deserve.

We take away many happy memories and experiences. From the early days playing at Mearns Academy in Laurencekirk and Drakes Dungeon on the Castlegate, through the happy times of getting to support some of our favourite bands such as Blaze and Thin Lizzy and playing stellar local gigs with the likes of Festr, Risactonia, Liber8, 7 Stone Under, Hot Mangu, Quik and all the rest, the famous twelve-man gig we played at Dr Drakes which required stage extensions and a flutist/saxophonist, to the more recent gigs at the Moorings where we have been greeted with an overwhelming audience response, we have enjoyed almost every second of it. We leave behind a body of work of which we are extremely proud, and we will miss the songs more than you will believe. I feel priveleged to have been allowed to sing on the creations of Len 'The Maestro' Wiltshire for so many years and to have worked with some of the best guitarists in town. And Erskine!

This is not, however, quite the end. They say it's better to go out with a bang than to fade away, and, as some of you may be aware, we have spent the last two years writing a 21-minute epic about an Antactic misadventure. Having finally reached the end, we are in the process of recording it and plan to release it as our swansong, alongside our other previously unrecorded song Cicatrix. We will also be playing three goodbye gigs, at which we will put the songs to bed and celebrate our tenth anniversary. First on the agenda we have Halloween at Drummonds on Friday with Thrashist Regime, Hot Mangu, My Mind's Weapon and Enrapture. Should be great, and a veritable smorgasbord of costumes and general Halloween related fun. It's an early gig, so come down and catch Thrashist Regime from 7.45pm. Doors are at 7.30pm.

Then we have a gig at The Moorings on December the 6th with Festr. This will be the tenth anniversary gig for both bands, as we began gigging together at Mearns Academy at the arse end of 1998. It seems that fitting that we played together at Atom's second gig and we are still together a decade later at our second last gig. Bound to be awesome fun, worth paying the money just for Spoonie's legendary banter.

Our final performance will be at Drummonds on Sunday December 14th at Drummonds. We can exclusively reveal that for one of the support slots the famous Risactonia have been coaxed into reforming for one night only. As one of our favourite ever Aberdonian Metal bands we are immensely pleased that we will be ending our career with them. We will have a whopping long set and it should hopefully be a brilliant final hurrah.

In an ideal world we'd like to think that every year or so we may get together and play the odd gig here and there, but knowing the way life goes we really don't know how likely that actually is, especially given the complexity of the songs and the fact that life is fairly likely to take some of us far from the gloomy skies of Aberdeen.

Also, in one of those ironies of fate, a Central American record label has approached us with a view to releasing The Tie That Binds in several countries across America. While the timing of this may seem somewhat inappropriate we are pressing ahead, and who knows, if it sells well and we go multi-platinum in Honduras or Brazil and they want us to go and play over there then it's possible that could happen.

Once more, I cannot stress how lucky I feel to have been part of such an awesome band. We have won the prestigious Fudge Award for 'Most Metal of Metal' every year since its inception, and will retire proudly undefeated! Thanks to everyone who, over the last decade, ever came to see us, put a gig on for us, did our sound, bought one of our cds or filled in for any AWOL memeber (in actual fact there is no-one on the planet who has attended every single Atom gig, not even me!). We have always had a phenomenal bunch of fans who have made us feel like Gods instead of the insignificant little specks of humanity we really are. Cheers to you all, we shall miss you.

Not sure what your problem is. As a member of staff at the Belmont I'm fairly offended by your comments, and am really not sure who you're talking about. What do they look like? Is it me? If so, then say and we can have a square go Generally we are a cheery bunch with a good rapport with customers, and pride ourselves on good manners. As long as you treat us like human beings you will receive the same treatment yourself. If, on the other hand, you treat us like service mechanoids and don't say please or thank you then you can expect a similar response from us...

All I know is that we have a large bunch of satisfied customers, and when we were recently closed for a week so many people came in afterwards and said that they had missed us and that the other cinemas they had to visit during our closure are all shite.

When you say "all styles welcome"... how do you feel about beasting thrash?

Great name!

Thank you

I think my mate Murdo at work might have played in Risactonia? not sure lol

I know we arent thrash metal, but my power metal band Ascension - MySpace.com - Ascension - Are gig hunting everywhere! - Aberdeen, Scotland - Metal / Thrash / Trance - www.myspace.com/ascensionbanduk

Are putting on a Metal night at the tunnels on thursday 26th May, and we're looking for some good metal bands to play to.

If your up for it send us a message on the myspace as soon as pos. Youll have fun playing live with us, we're fucking full of energy, and it sounds like you guys are to

Ah, missed that I'm afraid, my bad! Still, maybe we can set something up for sometime! Cheers! And aye, Murdo was very much in Risactonia, lunatic that he is Legend.

Hello! We are resurrecting the genre of Beasting Thrash (anyone remember Risactonia? RIP), we played our first gig at The Moorings a week or so ago which went fairly well, and we're looking for gigs, possibly in June (nearer the start would be better) but certainly in July, August and possibly beyond. We'd like to play The Tunnels, Drummonds etc., yet somehow I cannot work out who to speak to about getting booked.

Be warned, we're loud and fast. But then, that is the nature of Beasting Thrash!

MySpace.com - Thrashist Regime - UK - Thrash - www.myspace.com/thrashistregime

The songs were recorded live with a minidisc mic so the quality is debatable. But you'll get the idea. We're doing some real recording at the moment, check out the video for proof.

Also, what is this about Snafu not booking metal bands because they don't want to be associated with 'that sort of music'? What's wrong with the metal crowd? It'd be great for a metal gig. How very snobby and patronising of them.

Cos there's no standing left and sitting down at a gig sucks. And I rather want to see Queensryche! Cheers.

I saw Danko Jones a few months ago and he was the biggest most total and utter knob I have ever seen in a band. What a complete twat. Maybe he was trying to be funny. He wasn't. He was just a cock. Shame, cos his music was passable.

Oh, and Trivium are great.

i finished romo - bill romanowski's autobiography and catch 22 - joseph heller at the weekend and started fear and loathing in las vegas - hunter s. thomson this morning on the bus. it's as good as i expected so far!

/x

Catch 22 is brilliant as I recall, although it was years ago that I read it, perhaps I should again when I get time. Fear and Loathing is even better, classic.

some of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories for uni, as well as 'The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym' by Edgar Allen Poe which I'm really enjoying.

I did Poe for my dissertation last year, haven't read that particular one, although I do mean to at some point. His short stories are brilliant. I had to read a Hawthorne story last year too, it was Young Goodman Brown if I recall correctly.

I'm doing a course on Victorian realism, so in the last few weeks I have read Oliver Twist (enjoyable but a ridiculous ending to the plot), Middlemarch (enjoyed it much more than last time I tried to read it), Jude the Obscure by Hardy (the most depressing book ever, but good) and I just finished The Awkward Age by Henry James. I hated it, and I've got to read Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway for next week, meh.

at Drummonds. Come along if you're nae watching the footy. Other ace bands are also playing

It will hopefully be better than the last one... Although 'These Colours Don't Run' had better not be a load of uber-patriotic pish!

ahhh see you's are actually firing up the warm up show a day before the gig.

According to blabbermouth.net

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=53278

Still about time you guys played outside Aberdeen ' date=' got to have a portlethen gig again to shoe Dan how the Porty massive get their thang on.[/quote']

Holy shit, we're on Blabbermouth!! Thanks for pointing that out

I am going

Dude looks like a lady.

We won! Thanks everyone who voted! Amazing!

The poll closes tonight, if anyone hasn't voted then please do! Cheers.

Let's not forget Iain Dowie's awesome own-goal for Stockport in the league cup a few years ago... rising majestically above everyone else in the box and nutting it emphatically past his own keeper. Brilliant!

Amazing!

Thanks all, please vote if you haven't already!

Call me a stupid cow if you like' date=' but I can't find the link! Be good to see some local boys on the same bill as Gamma Ray - you gotta win![/quote']

That banner Mac posted is the link!

To register you go to the icon on the top right of the page and fill in 4 lines... then log in, and the voting is in the 2006 line-up forum.

Cheers everyone!

There will be a new forum with the new site also